Russian Blacklist Grows

And so the list grows. On Saturday, the Kremlin added thirty more publications to its blacklist of extremist materials. That makes a total of 61 banned books, music, and films. The first list released in July was mostly a tally of Russian ultra-nationalist and Nazi literature. The sixteen works added in October continued along those lines. The new additions, however, mostly comprise of Muslim texts. The works of Said Nursi were particularly targeted, a move that surprised Russia’s Muslim leaders. “Said Nursi was a proponent of the most tolerant forms of Islam,” Nafigula Ashirov, the co-chair of the Russian Council of Muftis toldKommersant. He added that this seemed to suggest a “new wave of anti-Muslim sentiment in Russia” despite his and other Muslims support for United Russia. It appears that Russia’s local courts didn’t get the memo. This past May and September were critical months in this alleged “new wave.” It was then that the Tuimazinskii District Court in Bashkirostan banned the journal Al-Bai and books by Takiuddina an-Nabokhoni and the Koptevskii District Court in Moscow banned a number of Nursi’s works. The blacklist makes anyone in possession of these works subject to criminal prosecution.

National Bolshevik Party leader Eduard Limonov called the blacklist “the first steps toward political persecution” and a form of “censorship that violates the Russian Constitution.” Article 29 of the Russian Constitution states, “Everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought and speech” and “The freedom of the mass media shall be guaranteed. Censorship shall be prohibited.” Limonov, who has yet to be added to the list, knows what being banned is like. Russian authorities have prohibited and labeled his National Bolsheviks extremist. Andrei Sharov of the state-run Rossiiskaya gazeta, of course, maintains that the courts’ decisions were consistent with the Russian Criminal Code and that the they have “a duty to fight the appearance of extremism including those dressed in the form of articles, literature, film and even music.” Given this view, I’m sure that the list will grow even more with time.

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Anti-racist activists finally have a reason to mildly celebrate. Today, Russian xenophobe Aleksandr Belov was sentenced to six months in a penal colony for violating Article 282 of the Russian Criminal Code (“Inciting hate and enmity as well as the debasement of human dignity”). The case stems from the Russian March in fall 2007 where Belov goaded protesters “to chant anti-Semitic and anti-government slogans.”

People were wondering whether Belov would serve any time at all. The authorities were apparently afraid that jail time would turn Belov into a martyr.

Belov’s sentencing also led to his resignation as leader of the Movement Against Illegal Immigration (DPNI), Russia’s largest ultranationalist movement. According to Belov, he was forced to resign because if he was convicted while serving as DPNI’s leader, the organization would have been banned as extremist. “I do not want to let my brothers-in-arms down. I’m sure that they will never denounce me. That is the reason for my resignation.” he said. At the moment, the DPNI is being led by a seven member “National Council.”

Belov might have squeezed through a legal loophole, but there is no mistaking the fact that DPNI is extremist by all Russian legal definitions. They are certainly no more extremist than say the National Bolshevik Party. Yet even the mention of the latter in print can lead to a criminal inquiry as the editor of Vyatka osobaya gazeta is discovering. According to Kommersant, Nikolai Golikov, Vyatka‘s editor, is accused of “distributing” Natsbol literature because he used it in an item about their anti-crisis leaflets posted on banks in Kirovo-Chepetsk.

However, DPNI seems to possess no similar stigma. Perhaps this is because, unlike Limonov, Belov’s views toward immigrants are widely accepted among Russians. Or as Shaun Walker explained in a recent article on Belov:

According to Belov, an Orthodox Christian who is fasting for Russian Lent and fingers a set of prayer beads throughout the interview, the Russian authorities are out of touch with what the average person on the streets wants, and this is what makes groups like his popular. “The last time that Medvedev actually went out onto the streets and met people was probably about 30 years ago; he doesn’t understand what ordinary Russian people want,” he said. “A normal society should have a high level of civil activity, but in the period of Vladimir Putin’s rule, everything was done to get rid of civil society and revive some aspects of Soviet totalitarianism. The elites are corrupt, and not working in the country’s best interests.”
Indeed, one of the more surreal aspects of talking to someone like Belov is that despite the fact that he is a neo-fascist with a racialist ideology, much of what he says could easily come from the lips of Garry Kasparov, the Armenian-Jewish liberal leader who stands for just about everything that the nationalists despise.

But when talk moves on from what is wrong with the current Russian authorities to what should be done about it, the divergence in opinions becomes obvious. Belov doesn’t want Moscow to be a place where there are “ghettos:” places where “a white man goes and doesn’t feel at home.”

Given Russian unemployment levels, he claims, there is no need for unskilled immigrants to come to Russia; they should only be allowed in when they can demonstrate a clear skill that is not available among the local population. He also claims, using the traditional arguments of the far right, that immigrants are responsible for social problems in Russia: “Illegal immigrants sell weapons, drugs and create petty crime,” he said. “If we introduced a visa regime with the former Soviet republics, 95 percent of illegal immigration would be dealt with overnight. We have an absurd situation where people come legally but work illegally.”

Another part of the opposition to migrants stems from classic racialist arguments that haven’t been much in favour anywhere since the 1930s, and rank races according to their level of development. “Take Azerbaijan,” said [Viktor] Yakushev [DPNI’s chief ideologist], referring to a country from which hundreds of thousands of migrants come to Russia every year. “There is a different level of consciousness and knowledge. The society is still at the stage of feudalism; they don’t understand European civilization.”

“Different races have different cultural levels,” Yakushev continued, warming to the theme. “Just look at the state of BMW cars in the past few years—as more and more Turks work at the BMW plants in Germany, the quality has gotten lower and lower. Even though putting the cars together is relatively simple, the Turks don’t have the skill or cultural level to be able to do it properly.” (If this is, indeed, the way in which races are to be ranked, then it doesn’t bode too well for the Russians, I thought).

Belov may think that Medvedev and Putin are out of touch, but Yuri Roslyak, Moscow’s deputy mayor isn’t. Speaking on TVC last Tuesday, he called for a toughening of the city’s policy toward unemployed migrants. “If a migrant loses his job and stays in Moscow unemployed, he should be deported,” he said.

Russian are fertile for anti-immigrant sentiment. Immigrants are an easy target in bad economic times. And with unemployment hitting 7.5 million, or about 10 percent nationally, one shouldn’t also be surprised if anti-immigrant racism rises. Especially if it does among unemployed youth. About a third of unemployed Russians are between the ages of 15 to 29, many of which have little work experience.

The threat of rising extremism certainly isn’t lost on the Kremlin. According to Vedomosti, the government is thinking of creating a speacial commission under the President’s office to combat extermism. The commission would coordinate the MVD, FSB, educational institutions and social organizations in a united effort to fight “extremism.” Of course, the mention of the E-word immediately raises the question of definition. Extremism certainly applies to fascists and other neo-Nazis, as the Belov case shows. But “extremism” is an elastic concept in Russia, and it is easily wielded against opposition political groups, ranging from Memorial to the National Bolsheviks.

Everything depends on how this commission will concretely function and who will be on it. I think that it could be profitable if not only representatives of security organizations and national Diasporas are on it, but also human rights activists because the struggle against extremism is now acquiring an ambiguous character. The problems of extremism are used to expand the understanding of ‘extremism.’

Despite Orlov’s reasoned trepidation, the authorities aren’t blind to the growing Russian Right. At the conference in Yekaterinburg where the commission was announced, the Prosecutor-General reported that there around about 200 extremist groups in Russia with a following of around 10,000. The majority of them are under 25 years old. The most influential are nationalist and neo-Nazi groups like Army of the People’s Will, the National Socialist Society, the Movement Against Illegal Immigration, the Slavic Union, and the Northern Brotherhood.

Thankfully, with Belov’s sentencing one more fascist is off the street. At least for a little while.

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Titushki is a new word from Ukrainians’ lexicon that the whole world is now learning. This is the name for strong, athletic young men hired for money to cause trouble at public gatherings, who start up fights, who carry out other illegal actions. They operate under police protection or with the police taking no action at all. In fact, this is a shadow army of mercenaries that pro-regime forces have created for use against the people of Ukraine.

The Symbol of Generation “T”

Vadim Titushko, an athlete from Belaia Tserkov’, bestowed his name on Ukrainian hired provocateurs. Fame arrived for him not in the ring, but during a public gathering, “Rise Up Ukraine!,” where Titushko beat up Channel Five TV reporter Ol’ha Snytsarchuk and her husband, the photographer Vlad Sodel’. The incident happened May 18, 2013, in front of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) administration building on Vladimir Street in Kiev.

“About 10 people in sports clothes attacked us. We took pictures of them beating up Freedom (Svoboda) Party members and they didn’t like it at all,” said the photographer. The titushki beat them until they bled. Ol’ha Snytsarchuk’s lip and arms were badly damaged – her attackers took her phone away. Sodel’ himself, while trying to defend his wife, received slight wounds.

According to the reporter, the police did not get involved in the incident, although journalists several times tried to get law enforcement to defend them. As a result of being badly beaten, Ol’ha Snytsarchuk was taken away in an ambulance – doctors found out she had received an internal concussion (zakrytaia cherepno-mozgovaia travma).

As far as journalists were able to tell, the head of Belaia Tserkov’s Young Regionals city organization, Vasilii Boiko, had been directing the young toughs.

In a photo made by Sodel’ during the attack, a man in a black shirt can be seen intently looking after his fellow residents’ aggressive acts.

A video recording of the incident showed that the police, who had been standing in front of the group of young men who attacked, did nothing to stop the assault on the journalists.

Scenes of Vadim Titushko’s crazed look during the attack circulated throughout the Ukrainian media; journalists started using the word “titushki” as a collective term for people with personalities like his.

In September 2013, Kiev’s Shevchenko District Court issued a sentence against Vadim Titushko and other participants – a peace agreement was made between the accused and the victims.

According to the decision reached, Titushko was sentenced to three years prison, with the sentence to be served two years after the ruling. Besides this, Titushko was to compensate the journalists financially – 11,000 hryvnias per victim.

Vadik “The Romanian,” as our “hero” is most commonly known in his native Belaia Tserkov’, surfaced again on the horizon as the Euromaidan movement started up. According to parliamentary deputy Oleg Liashko, Vadim Titushko on December 15, 2013, headed a column of hired hooligans at Obukhov’s anti-Maidan.

Titushko on Two Fronts

“What money! I do it for the ideas,” Vadim Titushko yelled, mixing his response with swearing, when his group tried to start up a fight with Svoboda Party activists and other demonstration participants in Kiev on May 18, 2013. Vadik “the Romanian” and about another dozen young toughs who took part in beating up demonstrators and journalists train in the “Budo” sports club, which is registered under the Belaia Tserkov’s district police station. When he is free from doing hired jobs, Titushko takes part in sports matches, and he dreams of making a professional athletic career.

An Army of Titushki

How many titushki are there in Ukraine? Probably those who organized this army of bandits for their pro-regime masters. There are alarming figures being circulated in the press: 20,000 and more. These young toughs’ main task is to stir up provocations against participants of legal mass protests and meetings so that these events wind up breaking the law. State law enforcement personnel eagerly seek out opposition activists among the titushki to de-legitimize both the protests and their leaders. Titushki also often perform the role of guarding hired events.

Over November and December 2013, titushki were assembled in columns in Kiev’s Mariinskii Park. Like a real army, these “soldiers” were fed, transported, and given orders in organized fashion.

Titushki in Mariinsk Park in Kiev

Explanations of where these swarms of titushki in Ukraine come from vary somewhat. Basically, they all concur that titushki are hired members of sport clubs, often semi-legal ones, and/or members of groups from the criminal world. Some suppose that Ultras and groups of soccer fans are among titushki, and that they are among the most aggressive of them. There are rumors that it was exactly these people who could have provoked the storming of Bankovyi Street on December 1. Opposition figures have claimed that members of law enforcement structures, making themselves look like ordinary civilians, have taken part in provocations against Euromaidan participants. Regarding this, one can conclude, based on how events have developed on the Maidan, that titushki indeed are connected with the police – or at least the police don’t get in the way of their activities.

How Much Do Titushki Cost?

Vitalii Iarema, Member of Parliament, head of the Parliamentary Investigation Commission, former head of Kiev’s GUVD (City Administraiton of Internal Affairs) (the city police organs – translator), Police Lieutenant General, was the first to estimate the approximate sum given out to titushki: “I even know the amount – they get from 200 to 500 hryvnias a day.” Former Party of Regions member Inna Boguslovskaia, citing witnesses she knew, confirmed the price range: “I have a witness. It’s my husband’s aide. He saw how these people lived in the Hotel ‘Kiev,’ and how they pay them 250 hryvnias each.” She is one of those who are convinced that groups of soccer fans are among the titushki. As the Euromaidan developed and grew strong over time, so did the number of titushki and the amount they were paid: several of these hirelings confessed on tape that they already have been receiving 300 to 500 hryvnias. For active participation – i.e., provoking conflicts and disorders – they get paid 1,000 hryvnias and up. According to rumors, the provocateurs who attacked the police on Bankovyi Street on December 1 could earn tens of thousands of hryvnias.

Titushki in the Service of Business

Titushki had been around long before 2013 and the Euromaidan. For years, they were assembled and used to deal with personal issues involving businesses. For example, they were used to support and frighten people during forceful takeovers of firms. A source from a large real estate firm told Gordonua.com that not a single takover happened without the involvement of paid titushki:

“There always was a group of men in sports clothes there to support us – older, more experienced than today’s titushki. They chased away crowds of people who weren’t pleased with what was going on, they broke down barriers, and they made use of any kind of force needed to support us.”

By the end of 2013, these scattered groups were turned into an organized army, and the situation started to resemble an attempt at taking over an entire country by force.

Titushki in the Supreme Rada

On December 3, 2013, during protests supporting Ukraine’s Eurointegration course, several groups of youths “with the typical look,” in civilian gear, were brought into Ukraine’s Supreme Rada, accompanied by police. These young men, estimated at 100 to 200 altogether, were brought in through four police barriers. When they tried to enter the parliament building, some of them had to show their identity cards. Their documents turned out to have been issued by the Crimean territorial command of Ukraine’s riot police. Arsenii Iatseniuk, leader of the Fatherland (Bat’kivshchyna) Party fraction in the Supreme Rada, claimed that Party of Regions deputies had brought into parliament two hundred young men who were supposed to provoke a fight, and he ordered them out of the building. Vladimir Rybak (Party of Regions), parliamentary speaker, claimed that he had given no orders to bring in so-called titushki, and he assured him that there were no interlopers in the building. A video has documented the police arranging titushki within the police cordon around the Supreme Rada’s walls.

An Incident in Dnepropetrovsk

The coordinator of the local Euromaidan in Dnepropetrovsk, Viktor Romanenko, during the November 26, 2013 attack on its tent city, recognized among the attack’s participants members of the Dnepropetrovsk Region’s Judo Federation, a federation headed by Party of Regions member Ivan Stupak. These were the very same athletes who attacked peaceful protests in the summer of 2013.

On the evening of November 26, the attackers severely beat up Eurointegration supporters present on the square and demolished the tents. Several demonstrators wound up in the hospital with injuries. The police had left the scene before the attack happened, and they returned after the attackers had managed to hide themselves.

Titushki versus the Euromaidan

Titushki participation in the Euromaidan has led to them becoming a “fourth” power (alongside the police, Berkut special forces, and riot police) which the regime has used to oppose and sabotage peaceful protests. Eurotitushki have been mobilized in such large numbers that independent media have unanimously referred to an “army of titushki.” Besides engaging in provocations against participants in protests supporting Eurointegration, such hired men have been involved in storming and breaking down barricades, blocking events and institutions, and other shameful actions at the beck and call of Ukraine’s law enforcement forces, which have discredited themselves.

Titushki under Police Protection

Journalist Dmitrii Gnap put on Facebook a photo showing Berkut special forces leisurely hanging out with a group of young toughs who had started up a mass fight and attacked journalists in the center of Kiev on May 18, 2013. Among these toughs – Vadim Titushko.

It is an understatement that the police does not stop the actions of titushki. During the Euromaidan demonstrations, journalists and other citizens have confirmed the police using titushki in their operations against protestors assembled, and even protect and keep suspicious young toughs behind their formations. Besides provoking and frightening the population, the authorities have made use of the titushki as a workforce. Groups of young men in sports clothes, like body collectors, scoured around tents and rummaged through things protestors had left behind after their barricades had been stormed. The task of these titushki was to break up protestors’ camps quickly. These guys were not particularly polite, and as witnesses said, they didn’t allow them the chance to grab something from the things they had left behind during the turmoil.

During the attempt to storm the Maidan on December 11, a group of young men in sports clothes went through a police cordon that had surrounded the first Euromaidan activists’ barricade taken down. When asked by a Gordunua.com journalist what right did they have to allow them through the police cordon, one of the policemen said, “They work for the police.”

We managed to get the impression that these police assistants were dressed up in the orange vests of municipal service workers (“three Adidas stripes” pants and tennis shoes could still be seen under them) and that they were sent out to take apart the remains of barricades. Earlier, journalists from Public TV (Hromads’ke TV) filmed similar scenes after the storming of a protestors’ blockpost on Grushevskii Street.

How to Recognize a Titushka

As a rule, they are athletes who are involved in martial arts. They are lean and well-built. They are ready to inflict bodily harm on protestors. They appear as provocateurs who aim to provoke people against the police. During these scuffles, the police arrest protestors but not the ones who started the conflicts. To counter titushki “when in operation,” people are advised to record everything on video during the provocation, photograph it, and go to the police. Titushki fear publicity. Usually they wear hoods and hide their faces. Thus, they have to be as closely identified as possible. After the first incident with titushki involved, during the storming of Bankovyi Street on December 1, Euromaidan activists began circulating leaflets with instructions on how to recognize them and what to do if they take action against people.

Titushki Talk and Show Themselves

All attempts to enter into contact with groups of young athletes at best ends in failure – guys refuse to talk, or they openly “snub” journalists. But there are those who are not afraid to brag about how much they have earned or share some details on the daily life of the average Ukrainian titushka.

The Art of Being a Titushka

The characteristic look and style of titushki has made them into an object of pop art: graffiti of a guy in sports clothes, with the face of Viktor Yanukovych, squatting, decorated the TsNIL stop in the town of Slaviansk after the scandal with Vadim Titushko.

The trademark clothing of titushki – sports clothes and tennis shoes. Their favorite brand – Adidas. Their typical look – athletic young men with hoods who hide their faces with handkerchiefs or scarfs during “operations.” Titushki who cannot afford Adidas clothing are usually compared to the “gopniki,” poor urban youth close to the criminal world. “Woe be to the gopnik who does not dream of becoming a titushka,” is one joke going around Ukraine. These latter youth dress more simply, with clothing lacking brands. Vadim Titushko got offended when he was called a gopnik, and not for nothing: the black Adidas costume that became the symbol of titushki is expensive and beautiful, in contrast to the cheap clothing of gopniks who have been called upon to fight the Euromaidan.

The word “titushki” has resounded throughout the world. The press in Europe makes wide use of it, moreover because “titushka” sounds as familiar to foreigners as the famous Russian word “babushka.”

Radio Liberty prepared an entire glossary of terms connected with Ukrainian realities for English speakers. It has, for instance, the word “zek” and an explanation for the phrase, “If you’re not jumping, you’re a Moskal.” Titushki have a leading place in it: “burly guys dressed in sports gear who act as agents provocateurs.” (Photo)

iTitushki

iTitushki are people with the psychology of titushki, but with more developed intellect and knowledge of computers. iTitushki “beat up” (mochat) especially active bloggers and figures on the Internet, and they also provoke scandals and technical problems in comments on web pages of popular publications and Internet media, often ones belonging to the opposition.

Selling Out One’s Conscience

Broad masses of people have joined the army of titushki – hired students, paid demonstrators. They don’t beat up faces of opponents, they don’t act like hooligans (though they might get drunk), but they hold up flags with hostility, earning their 200-300 hryvnias for participating in meetings supporting Party of Regions.
A show demonstration for the regime, scheduled for December 14 and 15, which used up administrative resources, including free trips to Kyiv, where tens of thousands of paid demonstrators were shipped in, hid one of the greatest problems facing Ukraine. In a modern European country, practically led to financial default, where the population has become impoverished and has partly faced degradation, a huge slave labor market is operating, one where slaves are ready to sell themselves for kopecks to the local masters of their lives.

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Russian authorities just keep stretching and stretching the meaning of extremism. Now the list of extremists will include a variety of youth subcultures extending from skinheads to fans of the iconic Soviet rock band Kino. This is according to a report released by the St. Petersburg Prosecutor’s Office which places music fans under police surveillance. Reports the St. Petersburg Times:

According to the report, the district’s criminal police have identified and included on a register “88 people who attribute themselves to informal entities such as ‘Skinheads,’ ‘Aggressive Football Fans,’ ‘Punks,’ ‘Emos,’ ‘Black Metallers,’ ‘Fans of [the band] Kino,’ ‘Alternative Rock Fans,’ ‘Anarchists’ and others.”

Kino was a local 1980s pop-rock band influenced by The Cure and Duran Duran, and is still popular with young people in Russia, though it split up when its frontman and sole songwriter Viktor Tsoi died in a car crash in 1991. Plans to erect an official monument to Tsoi are underway in the city.

The report said that apart from the criminal police, “this work” is also conducted by neighborhood police inspectors and juvenile police departments.

Once exposed and registered, the music fans and members of the other “informal entities” are the subject of “preventive work” conducted by the district’s police officers, the district’s administration officials and educational institution staff to “prevent crimes, including those of an extremist nature.”

Wonderful. But far from anything new. A list of “ideologically harmful” music was concocted by the Komsomol in the 1980s. It didn’t work then and it sure as hell isn’t going to work now. One would think the St. Petersburg police have better things to do with their time.